Re: [compost_tea] Compost Tea for Potatoes

From: <soilfoodweb_at_aol.com>
Date: Fri, 2 May 2003 16:42:13 EDT

The person willing to talk to people about their results is Jason Kimm, but
he is a grower and doesn't have time to answer herds of e-mail and phone
calls. So, it would be best if I could screen questions, and pass on to
people his contact information when appropriate.

We work with a number of other growers in Idaho, WA and OR who do not want
people calling them directly. The last I heard back from one of the tea
center folks we work with was that someone called him up and ranted and raved
about how CT doesn't work.

Of course, the reason they use compost tea is because it works. They do
appropriate testing to make sure their compost and compost tea has the proper
set of organisms. Ask Oscar Gutbrod and Solamen Yilma if they tested the tea
they brewed. Both of these people have seen what compost tea, done
correctly, in a good program. I know that Oscar visited Jason's farm.

People have to pay attention to the proper way to make and use CT. The facts
are that tea has to have the biology required to do the job.

You must use a REAL compost tea machine, not a "wanna-be". You need to start
in the fall with a soil compost or tea application. If the residues do not
decompose by about half their weight in a month of decent weather, you need
to apply the compost or tea again. Again in the spring, if residues aren't
properly decomposed and gone. Then a seed treat, if you don't have good sets
of biology in the soil. And then start the foliar program.

You can't put on one application of a CT and expect it to solve 50 years of
abuse!

So, Matt, have you tested the tea you are putting on the Rodale trial? Do
you know you are making compost tea, and not just some anaerobic bacterial
brew?

If people don't test, and don't know that the tea has the biology required
(which is most of the reason why anyone uses tea, right?), then how can they
go around saying that CT doesn't work?

Elaine Ingham
President, Soil Foodweb Inc.
www.soilfoodweb.com
SFI Oregon, USA
SFI Australia
SFI New York
SFI Europe
SFI New Zealand

"Hope is not a feeling. It is not the belief that things will turn out well,
but the conviction that what we are doing makes sense, no matter how things
turn out." -- Vaclav Havel, former President of the Czech Republic




Received on Fri May 02 2003 - 17:01:21 EDT

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